Topics - fromsoysauce

Older fans of mine might remember a game I made back in high school, and a fully animated CG opening that was inspired my Monty Oum's stuff and fully animated and rendered in Anim8or, if you have never seen the short it can be found here:

Well- I'm doing my Sr. Capstone for college this year, and I decided what better way to end college then with by revisiting the project that got me into college in the first place!

I don't have anything special at the moment, but I do have some screen shots of a fully Rigged modern design for our super hero protagonist: Raincloud.

So I have been recently looking into the prospect of creating 3D models of animated characters to distribute on sites like Itch.io and Unity Asset Store for aspiring animators and game developers to use as they please for their projects.

I haven't yet done anything yet, but I wanted to know if it'd be acceptable if my interpretation of these characters was among those in my product line.

For more details on my plan:

So I've been working on this idea in the form of documents for a few months: I wanted to start a franchise called "Mistic Maiden." (yes spelled like that). MM is planned to run for a number of different mediums:Video Game AssetsShape Ways 3D Printed potable and dress-up-friendly action figures.Shape Ways stationary figuresVideo GamesYoutube Animated ShortsWeb ComicsMusic Albums

MM's main lines though will be it's toyline and game asset line. And to that end the products will tend to have a focus on spins on mythological, or otherwise original fantasy characters that look like they could be inspired by some mythology.

Robin and Sharkie, are also going to be significant in another project I want to do for 2018, a fresh new set of Youtube Tutorials on 3D modeling and Animation featuring Anim8or and Maya (pending name "Animation sensei").

So I guess the question I have for Steve is would using these characters for my Mistic Maiden franchise and also in a way to promote Anim8or be acceptable/sanctioned?

I would love to use these characters to promote the program I adore and love the most of all, Anim8or. But if it's not Ok, then the characters are probably different enough a take on the source material that they could be instead published as general public domain characters.

Decided to try do fan-art, other people's characters to expand my comfort zone on 3D modeling aspects of design. I try to make sure that she stays recognizable from the source material, but drawn in a way that she also would not look out of place standing next to my classic characters. Though I did make a few creative liberties with the design, I tried otherwise to be quite faithful to the official depictions of her.

So I am currently in an animation class in college. During critique of project one the prof and TA's description of my work inspired me to analyze and research the soundness of their claims. This video essay was the result:

I remember by complete accident I pressed some key while editing a mesh. The mesh had a few parts of geometry which were not binded together, and I did plan to separate it into different meshes. But I was planning on doing it by selecting all the faces of each unit and detaching the face to create a new mesh.

But I swear that a few years ago when that happened I had accidentally hit a key and it broke apart the mesh into smaller components based on geometry that was actually connected to each other.

Does anyone know what I am talking about and if so what the hot key to do this is?

It occurred to me that, at least in Unity, there is a fairly well supported "Unity Assets Store." If I am totally honest with myself, I feel like the most fun I have in 3D modeling is designing characters and dressing them up cute. It's not nearly as fun to, for example, make terrain or back-drops. So I started a document for plans on having a product line for Unity Assets that anyone could use for their own projects.

Every character would come with a standard set of animations:IdleWalkRunDuckJumpFallLandDamageKOAttackAir Attack

And usually at least 3-6 animations that are unique to them based on their design or equipment (i.e. a sword user would have slash animations)

Right now the idea is still in brainstorming phases, but I was thinking of having product lines mainly for public domain characters like Little Red Riding Hood, Lady Justice and the Grim Reaper. Also maybe down the line for gods and goddesses from various myths, like Artimis, Neith, Chalchiuhtlicue, and Kaggen.

Of course, having a more generic line is something I could do at some point too, like: Ninja, Mermaid, and Knight.

Of course, this all still comes as second to my role as a video game developer, and will serve as something to do as a nice side hobby.

As you know my forte is making cutesy things, and Anim8or has graced me with countless joyful moments being able to really flesh out that art direction. Naturally when Steve said "Show off what you do best in Anim8or" I went all out to make the cutest image I could imagine that captured what I feel is the Anim8or spirit of fun and easy going 3D modeling. I even included Anim8or's 2 recurring characters, Robin (from the main page of the website) and Shark (whom has appeared in all of the Anim8or splash screens that I an remember). As a bonus, the use of bluish green for the grass and purple for the walls references the green and purple blobs from the old splash screen!

My brother and I were having a talk about why we've been using this freeware program for a decade. We've always found Anim8or to the program we use the most. Even considering the fact that when we make our games we do everything from modeling, music, to programming without help.

The only other 3D program I use is Maya, but I don't model in it, I just use it for animation because it is very easy to run it's FBX animations in Unity. But my models are always made straight out of Anim8or.

My brother added that the maya forums have an unusual feeling to them, since he would ask about if Maya had a tool, basically he tried to describe An8's cut edge tool. The reaction he got from the people there was basically : "Why would you ever want to do something like that?" Without actually addressing the question to solve it as a problem.

From what I understand, people who primarily use Maya treat 3D modeling as digitally sculpting things. Where as, at least for my brothers and I, Anim8or let's us make models by what feels more similar to making a drawing but in 3D (a-la our collectively most used tool "add-edge") or otherwise a digital form of origami, a-la cut-edge tool (our second most used tool).

Maya on the other hand, as far as 3D modeling, seems to require some rudimentary understanding of sculptural principles.

Besides how much I appreciate how An8 simulates 3D drawing + Origami, here are some other reasons I love it personally.

1) It's a tiny file, that can be installed like nothing.2) It loads up pretty much instantaneously, even on lower-end computers.3) The Arc-Rotate tool. It can do everything you need a camera to do and is easy and intuitive to maneuver.

Last year I was really fond of the youtube video format from "the animation squad" folks like Domics, Jaidenanimations and such who tell short stories humorously using cartoon characters.

I'd like to try doing something like that, except with 3D animations instead of drawn ones. I took a lot of time trying to come up with a look that I feel represents what I stand for, is easy to read, but also not boring on a conceptual level, I doodled this:

Then I spent some time coming up with a pallet. Since my favorite color is green, I wanted to make sure that was the main color, so around that I came up with the idea to use secondary colors for the pallet (Green, Orange, Purple).

Just finished rigging the model, 2 versions, chibi and less-so:

By the way, I am still planning on using Robin-Chan in videos too, likely the tutorials will feature both.

Glass Wing had these events called "The Twilight Trials" they were sorta like the role a "boss battle" would be, except instead of fighting a monster, you did a monster of a platforming challenge.

I've done away with that in favor of Dreamscapes. These are actually going to be designed primarily to be casual fun rather than harsh challenges. Also being set in a dream means I have a lot of artistic freedom to make things weird in a pretty way!

Hey again y'all! Before I actually go and make a more dedicated series of tutorials, I felt it would be better to warm up making tutorial style videos. So I created this tutorial on a specific technique I use when 3D modeling. Let me know how I did ^_^

My main priority when making tutorials is to not waist my viewers time, so I aim to make my videos no more than 6 minutes long so that they can just cover the material of the specific point. If the viewer should need to take a moment, I am under the impression that it is up to them to pause the video, or scrub to the previous relevant point.

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Just tell me what you think! Should I lean to a more expressive reading of my lines? Or would you rather I go for a more monotone and clear reading?